Round Top, Texas – Machinery from The Industrial Revolution is now being valued as archaeological artifacts. Gritty workings from defunct factories are imaginatively repurposed as furniture in warehouse lofts, downtown apartments and contemporary houses.
The art lies not merely in rehabbing greasy old things into distinctive furnishings, homeowners also must appreciate the aesthetic of something that never was meant to be art.
In Texas, a semiannual antiques fair acclaimed for its high-quality American furniture and decorative arts is turning into one of the country’s best venues for scoring these obscure industrial prizes. During the past two years, a small group of like-minded dealers has gravitated here from urban locales like Santa Monica, Calif., Houston and Chicago. They mine not only the Rust Belt, urban areas in the nation’s midsection where manufacturing once dominated, but also agrarian regions where outdated machinery can be dissected for its abstract parts.
Last spring, for instance, a massive work bench with a deeply scarred wooden top, industrial casters and multiple drawers, had been scoured and waxed to highlight its imperfections. It was a candidate for a kitchen island, dining room sideboard or a cocktail bar.
“I think certain objects have an inherent soulful quality,” says Scott Filar of Chicago, whose business is named Mad Parade. “A lot of industrial salvage was never meant to be seen outside a factory setting. But presented in a modern house or apartment, it exists as sculpture, no matter what the original function was.”
Some other hallmarks of salvaged industrial design might include:
De-grunged machinery bases combined with table tops of marble, butcher block or weathered, waxed zinc or tin.
Light fixtures fashioned from industrial glass shades or any machinery part that can be suspended.
Architectural components of natural stone, cast stone, terra cotta, concrete, tin or wood used as table bases and other furnishings and/or elevated to the status of sculpture.
Hand-lettered or figural commercial signs rendered by a schooled artist or unskilled hand as art for big walls.
Quilts and other textiles repurposed as graphic art for big walls.
